HYPER-TOURISM: RE-THINKING TRADITION IN TOURISM AND TRAVEL
Hyper-Traditions Conference
Tenth Conference of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments (IASTE)
December 15 – 18, 2006
Thammasat University – Bangkok, Thailand

As part of this international conference, the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change is, in association with IASTE, inviting papers which address the way that the concept of tradition is being transformed in and by tourism and tourists, around the three axes of the conference - From Simulated Space to “Real” Tradition, Hyper-Traditions and “Real” Places, and Identity, Heritage, and Migration.

The concept of tradition is embedded in the very nature of travel and tourism. Long standing customs and patterns of behaviour, together with tangible manifestations of continuity, consistency and inheritance, form an essential part of the tourist search for difference and distinction dressed, to varying extents, in romanticised narratives. In this vein, tradition has become strategically and tactically mobilised within the global political economy, circulating as images, imaginings and ideals that fuel tourism development and touristic practice. Furthermore, over the years tourism itself as a product and project of modernity has generated its own traditional practices which allows us to speak of 'tourist identity' and which feeds into conventional binaries of tourists and the 'other' and, 'here' and 'there'. At the same time tourism constantly challenges and changes our received notions of the traditional through its constant abstractions, reductions and packaging of social realities, and through their consumption as experiences. What does the transformation of tradition mean for the tourist? Do we have to re-configure tourism as a way of experiencing hyper-traditions?

Interested colleagues are invited to submit a short, one-page abstract, not to exceed 500 words. Do not place your name on the abstract, but rather submit an attached one-page curriculum vitae with your address and name. All authors must submit an electronic copy of their abstract and short CV via e-mail. Abstracts and CVs must be placed within the body of the e-mail, and also as attachments.

E-mail this material to Professor Mike Robinson - mike.robinson@shu.ac.uk no later than February 17, 2006.
All papers must be written and presented in English. Following a blind peer review, papers may be accepted for presentation in the conference and/or publication in the conference Working Paper Series.

Contributors whose abstracts are accepted must preregister for the conference, pay registration fees of $375 (which includes a special discounted $25 IASTE membership fee), and prepare a full-length paper of 20-25 double-spaced pages. Registered students may qualify for a reduced registration fee of $175 (which includes a special discounted $25 IASTE membership fee). All participants must be IASTE members. Please note that expenses associated with hotel accommodations, travel, and additional excursions are not covered by the registration fees and have to be paid directly to the designated travel agent. Registration fees cover the conference program, conference abstracts, and access to all conference activities including receptions, keynote panels, and a short tour of nearby sites.

For scholars and researchers interested in the study of traditional environments, the far-reaching transformations brought by globalization require not only a recalibration of the idea of tradition but also a substantial repositioning within a shifting intellectual environment. While it is clear that contemporary forces of globalization have proven transformative, the transformations have largely defied prediction. Contrary to the expectations that globalization would act as a totalizing force, somehow erasing “tradition” and challenging “cultural coherence,” investigations reveal that globalization may more accurately be said to have destabilized the idea of tradition as a repository of authentic ideas and customs. In this way, it has intensified the process of de-linking identity and place and, by extension, intensified the deterritorialization of tradition: a process that has challenged the idea of tradition as an authentic expression of a geographically specific, culturally homogenous and coherent group of people. However, this process is not entirely new. Prior moments of globalization, such as colonialism, have also brought about the deterritorialization of tradition and provide useful points of comparison to the present moment. Prior IASTE conferences have explored the effects of globalization upon understandings of space and place; inquired into the post-traditional condition; analyzed the implications of migration, diasporas, and emerging hybridities; and asked whether or nor the millennium marked the “end of tradition.” For the 2006 International IASTE Conference, participants are invited to investigate a new dimension of the transformation of tradition: hyper-traditions.

For further details please visit the Conference website: http://arch.ced.berkeley.edu/research/iaste/2006%20conference.htm

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